There have been many discussions here at Missoma HQ about how we can try our best to help the environment and offset any carbon footprint we may be imposing on our wonderful earth. We’ve been looking into what we may have been doing wrong, and thinking of different ways to avoid injuring our planet as much as possible!

We have been taking small day-to-day steps to try and help, whether it’s ruthless recycling in the office and at home, or banning cars where we can (unless a sprained ankle or broken knee is involved!). However our attentions have recently turned to the upcoming Black Friday promotional period and we thought we should try even harder this year to reduce Missoma’s carbon footprint.

Black Friday is notorious in the industry. Brands are shipping out thousands of orders all over the world during this heavily discounted time in retail, and we started to look into the impact of this on the environment. In the UK alone last year, the annual shopping event saw millions of customers hit online sales globally, driving £7 billion in sales across the entire Cyber Weekend (as it’s known in the US). And this year the 'Retail Apocalypse' is set to drive record breaking sales.

We are very much aware of the environmental damage that can be caused by the packaging and shipping of hundreds of orders, which are all unfortunate and inevitable side effects of shipping our products to our international customers. After a team brainstorm session, we decided that we wanted to partner up with TreeSisters to try and help balance out our activity over this period.

What attracted Missoma to TreeSisters was the non-profit organisation’s dedication to being run by women, with the motto of women ‘seeding change’ for the environment - this aligns so well with Missoma’s ethos of empowering women and creating confidence from the outside in, so we knew it was the perfect match.

Over Black Friday, Missoma will be working with TreeSisters to support the organisation’s goal for achieving planetary restoration, with a focus on women and tropical reforestation. Within this collaboration, we will be planting one tree for every order made on the Missoma website during Black Friday. This initiative is the brand’s way of giving back to our planet with each order placed, while also supporting women, which is a fundamental brand value for us. For each order placed on the site, the women of the TreeSisters organisation will plant one tree along the tropical forest belt in Kenya, Madagascar, Brazil and India with the aim to hit 1 million trees planted per month for prime reforestation and climate repair. Missoma plan on helping TreeSisters hit and exceed their target through this Black Friday initiative.

A huge thank you to TreeSisters for providing all photographs used within this post.